


your gaze a string

by laallomri



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pining, Rating for Language, Season 3, also for Vaguely Inappropriate Lance Jokes, and makes a fool of himself in front of his crush, as he cares for his found-family little sister, nature documentary narrator voice: watch this human-galra boy, ron swanson voice: nature is amazing, she/her pronouns for pidge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 15:12:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13790370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laallomri/pseuds/laallomri
Summary: “Seriously,” Lance says, “I really do hope I grow more. Otherwise I’ll just have freakishly large hands. Though I guess that’s not necessarily a bad thing.” He waggles his eyebrows, smirks. “Cause you know what they say about a guy with big hands.”Keith gives him a dead stare.“Big ego,” he says flatly.In which Keith gains a fingerless-glove best bud, a pun-loving little sister, and a goofy ninja sharpshooter boyfriend, all in the span of twenty-four hours.





	your gaze a string

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this](https://leggylance.tumblr.com/post/169446525024/lance-wanting-to-patch-up-keiths-bruisedbloodied#notes) post by @leggylance
> 
> I know Lance has blue eyes in canon but as usual I'm changing them to brown cause 1. it's my fic so I Do What I Want and 2. I'm a poc and I'm tired of chars of color almost always having eurocentric features
> 
> warnings: beginning of a panic attack (char is able to calm down before it turns into a full-blown one); mentions of dysphoria (not detailed but does contribute to char being upset on top of other, unrelated factors)
> 
> title is a lyric from Udi Udi Jaye, a song from the movie Raees (the full lyric is actually 'my heart a kite, your gaze a string' but I thought that was too cheesy for a title lmao)

“I have come to the conclusion,” Pidge announces at breakfast, two mornings after the fiasco of alternate-reality Altea, “that there is a romance on this castle ship.”  
  
Keith looks up from his food goo so fast he gets a crick in his neck.  
  
“What?” he croaks. His heart thuds. “Who— _what_?”  
  
(how could she know? no one knew—or so he’d thought—is he that obvious?—but she’d said romance, not crush, and romance implied reciprocity—oh god, oh _god_ , what if Allura liked Lance _back_ , what if they’d gotten together and Keith hadn’t even realized and _fuck_ he’s an idiot of course they’d gotten together of _course_ they did they’d gotten so close after the lion switch hadn’t they and Lance has gone from annoying flirt to admiring friend and they’re not even at breakfast right now cause they’d gone to the Blue Lion’s hangar and what if they aren’t just talking to Blue what if they just wanted to be alone together and—)  
  
“It’s between you two,” Pidge says, pointing her spoon at Hunk and Keith, “and fingerless gloves.”  
  
(…oh)  
  
“What?” Keith says again, because all other vocabulary has left him.  
  
“I like fingerless gloves,” Hunk says, waving a hand around and flexing his fingers. “They keep my hands clean when I work on stuff, but they don’t get in the way. Also they look cool. It’s a win-win.”  
  
“But you wear them all the time,” Pidge points out. “Doesn’t it feel weird?”  
  
“Not really,” Hunk says. “You get used to it.” He glances at Keith. “Right?”  
  
“I—yes—right,” Keith stammers, still overwhelmed by the roller coaster of the past few seconds. “Yeah.”  
  
“Me and Keith are fingerless-glove best buds,” Hunk says, and he pronounces the phrase as if it’s some kind of motto, or maybe a band name. He lifts up a hand for a high five. “Glove buddies!”  
  
Keith high-fives him on autopilot, his heart still thudding.  
  
“I still think it’s weird you wear them all the time,” Pidge says, but she drops the subject in favor of discussing the planet they were currently on track to visit. “Has Allura or Coran told either of you anything about Gar-Mi? I know we’ll have our briefing before we actually meet the Garmians but I want to do research ahead of time too.”  
  
“I heard that’s it hot,” Hunk says. “Like, super hot. Hot enough to fry a Helassian egg on an Arusian sidewalk.” He pauses. “Coran told me that yesterday. I’m guessing it’s just like frying a chicken egg on an earth sidewalk.”  
  
Pidge makes a face. “Okay, so that’s a mark in the minus column.”  
  
“Coran might have been exaggerating,” Keith says, recovered enough by now to speak. “It might not be that bad.”  
  
Pidge brightens. “You’re right,” she says, tucking back in to her food goo. “Coran exaggerates all the time. He’s probably exaggerating about this too.”

.^.  
  
Coran, it turns out, had not been exaggerating in the least.  
  
Gar-Mi is hot. Really, really, _really_ hot.  
  
“Humid,” Pidge corrects with a pant, pushing her bangs back from her sweaty forehead. They’re been on Gar-Mi for all of ten minutes and already her pale face is tinged pink. “Dry heat is okay sometimes, but humidity is terrible.”  
  
“How dare you,” Lance says indignantly. “Humidity is a gift from god himself. Dry heat would sell you and your skin to the devil for a bag of salt and vinegar flavored chips. And salt and vinegar chips are disgusting.”  
  
Either way, Gar-Mi is hot, thanks to its three suns. According to Allura, it’s also one of the few planets that the Galra haven’t conquered and have little to no chance of ever conquering, due to an unusual atmosphere and the peculiar ingenuity of its people. Between that and the fact that the Garmians are a fairly informal civilization, the paladins can forgo their armor for their regular clothing when they disembark and go to the Garmian palace, a perk they are grateful for given the horrible heat.  
  
The meeting with the Garmian leader passes without incident; despite avoiding Galra occupation the Garmians have no love for the empire and are more than willing to assist in the fight against Zarkon. Keith spends most of the meeting squirming in his seat and pretending he isn’t internally dying every time a Garmian tries to speak directly to him.  
  
Once Allura’s secured the Garmian leader’s support the official part of the meeting is over and the paladins and Garmians are left to mingle. Normally Keith would try to talk to a few people, would actually be interested in learning about the aliens and their culture, but the meeting was long, and since the Garmians are accustomed to their climate they don’t have any kind of cooling in the palace, and the heat is making him irritable. In the interest of avoiding accidentally causing a diplomatic incident by snapping at someone, he tries to stay in the corner, away from the crowd.  
  
After a few minutes a Garmian comes up to him anyway, four eyes shining and seven limbs waggling with excitement at getting to speak to a paladin of Voltron. Keith is already bracing himself for an awkward conversation, as he is nearing the end of his tether with regards to how much social interaction with strangers he can handle at once, but he thinks he can make it through a few minutes of small talk, can answer a couple basic questions about Voltron, can handle the usual flowery praise—  
  
—but then after asking how he’s doing and how he likes it on Gar-Mi, the Garmian asks him how long he’s been the black paladin—  
  
—and for a devastating second Keith feels like he can’t breathe—  
  
—and he doesn’t know if it’s because he’s so socially worn out or if it’s because it’s so hot or if it’s because the question reminds him that he’s just—  
  
—standing here—  
  
—sweating to death in a castle and picking at the weird snacks Coran made—  
  
—and Shiro is out there—  
  
—god knows where—  
  
—alone or hurt or imprisoned or dying—  
  
—and Keith isn’t doing anything about it, he isn’t doing anything at all, he hasn’t had the time to take the lion out to look for Shiro in almost a week, and he’s just standing here in this stupid fucking palace where his biggest complaint is the fucking _heat_ , and Shiro could be fucking _dead_ , and Keith is just _standing_ here—  
  
“Keith’s been our fearless leader for a couple of months now,” he hears Lance say to the Garmian. “He’s doing a great job.”  
  
Keith takes a deep breath, then another, then another, tries to think through the tightness in his chest. He glances over at Lance, who’s standing halfway between him and the Garmian, as if to create a buffer. Lance nods at him encouragingly, smiles a little, and the rising panic in Keith starts to settle down. He takes another deep breath, clenches his fists and unclenches his fists to keep from shaking.  
  
“Yeah,” he manages finally. Belatedly he remembers to meet the eye of the Garmian who had addressed him. “I, um. I’ve been black paladin for a couple months.”  
  
Towards mid afternoon Allura suggests they all go exploring in the Garmian forest. Pidge plans to stay in the castle ship, citing a lifetime of allergies and sunburns as reason to stay inside, until Coran announces that he’s planning on cleaning the castle top-to-bottom and would be glad of her help if she’s going to be staying in.  
  
“Never mind,” Pidge says, turning on her heel at the door to the castle ship and joining Allura and the boys outside. “Suddenly I have the urge to explore.”  
  
The five enter the forest by way of a Garmian-made path near the palace. As soon as they go in Keith is struck by how eerily silent it is; there is no sound at all other than that of their own footsteps and murmurs, no sound of bugs or forest animals. Normally he likes silence, but this is—weird.  
  
“It’s not dangerous,” Allura says, seeing his expression and the way he instinctively reaches back to touch his knife. “Insects and animals on Gar-Mi make noise on a frequency that cannot be heard by anything other than themselves and other Garmians. Garmians can do it too, though of course they were gracious enough to speak on a level we could understand earlier.”  
  
Keith nods, though he still feels on edge. He tries to relax; Allura looks perfectly calm, happy even, and if she’s calm then he probably has no reason to feel otherwise. He glances at her again, watches as she oohs over a purple flower that Hunk points out to her. She’s wearing what looks like the Altean equivalent of a sundress, pastel blue with white polka dots, and her hair is piled on her head in a messier version of the bun she wears during battle.  
  
She looks—happy. Really happy, actually, as she plucks the flowers and sniffs it and tells Hunk it reminds her a little of juniberries. Keith can’t recall the last time she looked this happy; certainly not in the past week, not since they discovered the other Alteans and learned so quickly that they were not the kind of Alteans that Allura would want to meet. Hunk looks happy too, pointing out other flowers and plants as they walk past and asking about various properties and tastes. The two of them get caught up in a botanical conversation that Keith soon loses track of, so he tunes in to what Lance and Pidge are doing instead.  
  
Pidge, it seems, is dying. She’s huffing and panting and already pretty sunburnt. Lance is trying to shield her face from the sunlight filtering in through the trees, his hands hovering above her hair to try to create a shadow. It’s not helping much, to Pidge’s dismay.  
  
“Why didn’t”—huff, pant—"Coran give us”—huff, pant—“useful supplies?” she asks as they walk along the path. “Like water”—huff, pant—“or a hat?”  
  
Lance shrugs, an odd motion with the backpack Coran had given him slung over his shoulders. “I think he likes to watch us suffer sometimes.”  
  
Pidge laughs, though it’s more like a huff. “Probably.”  
  
Keith feels like he ought to contribute to the conversation, either _maybe this is his revenge for Pidge finding a way out of helping him clean_ or _yeah it’s weird he just gave us first aid supplies and not snacks or water too_ , but it’s hard to remember how to talk because now that he’s looking at Lance he’s realized that his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and he sees how his forearms are strong and sun-bronzed on top of their natural brownness, sees how his already curly hair is curling even more in the humidity, sees how the broadness of his shoulders is even more obvious when he’s not wearing his enormous hoodie, and it’s—distracting.  
  
(it’s also distracting how often Lance keeps glancing at him as Pidge continues to complain, flashing a helpless grin as if he expects Keith to find his efforts to protect Pidge from the sun ridiculous instead of endearing, his eyes warm and brown and brighter than the three suns shining above their heads)  
  
( _dude_ , says a voice in Keith’s head, rolling its eyes,  _that’s really fucking corny_ )  
  
( _it’s not corny, it’s_ romantic, says another voice, one that sounds a bit like Allura, or maybe Hunk.)  
  
Keith ignores both the voices, gives Lance a swift smile and tears his gaze away to pretend he’s looking at a weirdly shaped plant instead.  
  
After a while the path splits in two.  
  
“Which way shall we go?” Allura asks.  
  
“Left,” Pidge says, as Hunk says, “Right.”  
  
They look at each other.  
  
“Left has more shade,” Pidge argues, “which is good, cause I’m already a lobster.”  
  
“Okay, but the right path has all those cool plants,” Hunk points out, “many of which could have cool botanical properties or add delicious flavor to our otherwise bland dinner.”  
  
“We could just split up and meet back at the castle ship later,” Lance suggests. “Maybe by sunset? Er—” He squints up at the sky. “Suns-set?”  
  
Everyone agrees. Hunk, Allura, and Lance take the right path (“I wanna help you taste-test these flowers,” Lance says to Hunk) and Keith and Pidge take the left (“I’ll keep you company,” Keith tells her, though he can’t deny that he’s just relieved to be away from Lance’s distracting forearms).  
  
The group splits up. Keith and Pidge trek along the path for a few minutes in silence. It’s definitely much shadier than the path they had just been on, though Pidge doesn’t seem much happier.  
  
“We can head back,” Keith says at length, after an alarming amount of huffing and panting on her part.  
  
“Nah, it’s fine,” she says, with another pant. “I don’t want to help Coran clean.”  
  
He really thinks it’d be better for her to clean in the climate-controlled castle ship than suffer out here, but he doesn’t know how to convince her of that, so he just nods and keeps walking. Another minute or two passes, and then:  
  
“Ah!”  
  
Pidge trips over her own feet and falls face first into a mound of dirt.  
  
“Pidge!” Keith jumps forward, kneels in the dirt next to her. “Are you okay?”  
  
She mumbles something.  
  
“What?”  
  
She sits up and sighs. There’s a leaf in her hair and dirt all over her face and glasses and the front of her shirt. She wipes her sleeve across her mouth, then moves to sit cross legged. Keith can see scrapes and bruises on her knees.  
  
“Can we just sit here for a while?” she asks.  
  
She looks miserable, her voice a bit plaintive.  
  
“Yeah, of course.”  
  
He mimics her position in the dirt beside her. For a while they are quiet, and then:  
  
“Did you know,” Pidge says, “that Alteans don’t have sunscreen? They don’t get sunburnt at all.”  
  
“Sounds convenient.”  
  
“I wish humans were like that,” she goes on. “It’d be nice to not turn into a tomato every time I spend more than two seconds outside. Though I guess my allergies would still be a problem.”  
  
Keith starts to make a sound of agreement, but it occurs to him that he doesn’t actually know if he’s allergic to anything. Sometimes his throat itches if he eats too many almonds but he likes almonds so he just eats them anyway. He makes a mental note to never say anything like that aloud, especially not to Lance.  
  
“Do you have a lot of allergies?”  
  
She sounds resigned. “Yeah. Too many to list. It’s really annoying.” She makes a face. “Sorry I’m complaining so much.”  
  
“It’s okay.”  
  
“I just feel kinda sucky today.”  
  
That gives him pause. He looks at her more closely. “Do you think you’re getting sick? We should go back if you’re not feeling good.”  
  
“No, it’s not—” She blows out a sigh, her cheeks puffing up with the motion. “It’s not that kind of feeling sucky. It’s—it’s hard to explain.” She pulls her legs up to her chest, wraps her arms around them, then says, “Do you think my hair’s getting longer?”  
  
Keith blinks at the sudden change of topic.  
  
“Uh—” He peers at it. “No? Maybe a little.”  
  
Pidge’s face falls. “Oh.” She tucks her chin against her knees. “Okay.”  
  
A beat passes, then Keith says hesitantly, “Is everything okay?”  
  
Pidge peeks at him, then says in a small voice, “I was kind of hoping it’d be long enough now that people don’t think I’m a boy.”  
  
Keith’s brow crinkles at that, because why would it matter so much if people thought—  
  
Oh.  
  
“You’re still a girl,” he says, hoping it’s the right thing to say. “Your hair doesn’t matter. I mean—” He frowns at his wording. “If you want to have long hair that’s fine but even if you don’t then you’re still a girl.”  
  
“I know,” Pidge says. “I just wish it was long enough to me to braid. I got really good at braiding before I had to cut it. Matt used to let me put little braids in his hair to match mine.”  
  
Keith snorts at the image. Pidge grins.  
  
“Yeah, it looked really dumb.” Her grin fades. “But he let me do it anyway. He’s a good brother.”  
  
Another beat passes, heavier this time, and Keith realizes just how terrible of a day this is for her, between the heat and the exertion and the dysphoria and remembering Matt, and he wants to say something, or do something, because it is categorically cruel for the universe to dump so much on her at once and he wants to fix it—  
  
As if in search of a distraction, Pidge is glancing around the path now, at the odd flowers and tall trees. She squints up into the branches of the tree nearest her.  
  
“Oh hey,” she says, her voice brightening a little, “I think that’s the aamfruit Coran was telling us about.”  
  
Keith follows her line of sight and spots the large semicircle-shaped fruit hanging from the tree’s highest branches. Coran had told them about this before they had landed on Gar-Mi. Aamfruit is one of the planet’s most successful exports, desired for its delicious taste and, more importantly, the ability to temporarily cool down whoever ate it. It’s a popular fruit, especially among those who aren’t so well-suited to hot climates, but gathering it is difficult given the nature of the aamfruit tree, whose (in Coran’s words) “horrendously, painfully rough” bark stings and cuts severely enough to deter climbers without the proper equipment.  
  
“I wish it wasn’t so high up,” Pidge says wistfully. “I could use some cooling properties right now.” Her stomach gurgles loudly. “Plus I’m really hungry. The snacks at the meeting were kinda disappointing. I wish Hunk had been charge of them instead of Coran.” She glances up at the aamfruit once more, longingly, then tucks her chin against her knees again with a sigh.  
  
For a long moment neither of them speak. Keith looks up at the aamfruit again, then at Pidge. Her face is positively glowing now, both from sweat and from a sunburn that’s surely going to hurt like hell later. She still has dirt on her face and clothes, still has nasty-looking scrapes on her knees, still has a leaf in her hair. She looks like if she tried to stand up she would just fall right over again.  
  
Keith looks up at the aamfruit for a third time, sees it hanging fifty feet above his head. He thinks of gurgling bellies, of heat exhaustion and missing brothers and feeling at odds with your own body in the already odd vastness of space.  
  
He thinks of stinging, cutting bark, then looks down at his hands, which are mostly covered by his gloves.  
  
He stands up.  
  
“Gimme one sec,” he says, and approaches the tree.  
  
“What—” Pidge turns, sees him crack his knuckles and reach up for a branch. Her eyes widen. “No, Keith, Coran said it cuts up your hands a ton—Keith—Keith, _no_ —”  
  
Keith ignores her. He starts to climb the tree.  
  
It hurts. It hurts a _lot_. Coran hadn’t been joking about horrendously, painfully rough; the bark stings and scrapes mercilessly against the part of his skin that Keith’s gloves don’t cover, and after the first ten feet the tips of his fingers are red and raw. But Pidge is tired and hungry and dysphoric and Keith is kinda mad now, mad at this stupid planet for making her miserable and mad at himself for not noticing earlier that she’s miserable and mad at this damn tree for making it so damn hard to get some damn fruit—  
  
He’s halfway up the tree now. He stops on a branch for a second, flexes his fingers, grimaces at the pain shooting through them. He looks down at Pidge. She’s sitting cross-legged again, her head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes as she watches him.  
  
“Only a bit more,” he calls, pointing up, and without waiting for her response he turns back to the tree and keeps climbing.  
  
The bark stings more on the top half of the tree, though it might just be that Keith’s hands are already sore. By now even the part of his hands covered by his gloves start to hurt too, and by the time he reaches the lowest-hanging aamfruit the tips of his fingers are bleeding.  
  
He swipes an aamfruit, which comes off its branch without much resistance. It has a thick, dark blue peel and is heavier than it looks, about the weight of a melon. He shoves it into one of the pockets hanging off his belt and starts his descent.  
  
The descent is worse. Much worse. When he reaches the halfway point an especially rough part of bark cuts through the fabric of his gloves in several places, and by the time he jumps down hard to the ground, the impact reverberating through him, his hands are stinging all over and riddled with blood and dirt.  
  
He stands by the tree for a moment, catches his breath and wraps his hands in the end of his t-shirt in an effort to staunch the blood. Thankfully the cuts are small enough that after a minute or so the majority of them stop bleeding, though his hands still sting somewhat.  
  
Pidge watches him, her expression anxious. “Are you okay?”  
  
He unwraps his hands from his t-shirt. A cut on the side of his left hand is still bleeding, but it’s just a trickle and it’s covered by his glove, so he decides he’ll just wait for it to stop on its own. “Yeah.” He walks over to her, takes the aamfruit from his pocket and hands it to her. “Here you go.”  
  
Pidge takes the aamfruit, a huge semicircle in her small hand. She stares down at it for a long moment, then looks up at Keith, squinting in the sun.  
  
“Thank you,” she says, in a wobbly voice.  
  
“No problem,” Keith says. He spots the red smear on the peel and grimaces. “Sorry I got blood on it. I guess it’s a good thing that you have to peel it.”  
  
Pidge blinks up at him, blinks down at the aamfruit.  
  
“Yeah,” she says, and her voice shakes again, and she sniffs, and Keith sees droplets of water drip onto the aamfruit, and he’s confused because where would water be coming from—  
  
Oh. _Oh_.  
  
Keith looks round in a panic, half hoping someone would materialize out of thin air and tell him what to do. After a moment he crouches down beside her, hand hovering awkwardly over her shoulder.  
  
“Pidge, are you—are you okay?”  
  
He cringes at the pointlessness of the question, tries to think of what Hunk or Shiro would say.  
  
“Hey, I’m sorry—did I say something I shouldn’t have? You don’t have to eat this if you don’t want to—or if it’s the blood bothering you I can wipe it off—”  
  
“It’s not—it’s not that,” she manages between sniffles. She clutches the aamfruit tighter in her hands, as if it would vanish her tears. “I just—um—Matt once climbed a tree cause I said I thought apples on the higher parts of trees taste better and he did it even though he’s terrified of heights and this just—reminded me—of—that—and—” She sniffs again, her next words more like gasps. “And I—miss—him—and Dad—so much—and Mom too—and—and—and it’s hot and—and I’m tired and—and I—feel really dysphoric—and—”  
  
She breaks off with a hiccup, and Keith tries frantically to think of what to do, what to say—  
  
_Ask her if she wants a hug, you idiot_ , says a voice in his mind that sounds a bit like Lance.  
  
“Uh—do you want a hug?”  
  
Pidge sniffles and nods. He sits down properly and puts his arms around her, stiffly so he doesn’t get blood on her clothes. She puts the aamfruit in her lap, then tucks herself against him, hiding her face in his shirt. Keith can feel a wet spot forming where her tears drip onto the fabric.  
  
For a minute they sit there like that, then:  
  
“You suck at hugs,” Pidge says.  
  
Keith grimaces. “Sorry. I don’t have much practice at it.”  
  
“That’s okay,” Pidge says. Her voice is muffled by his shirt. “I should have known. I’ve seen you hug people before. You’re only good at doing the bro hug. Which is weird cause usually it’s just straight boys who do that.”  
  
Keith blinks down at her with surprise.  
  
“Are you—” He squints. “Are you making a joke?”  
  
Pidge gives a watery giggle.  
  
“You were crying two minutes ago!” His incredulity doesn’t reflect the overwhelming relief flooding through him. Pidge crying is like Hunk being anxious, or Lance being homesick, or Allura being too serious for her age; it’s something that Keith wishes he didn’t ever have to see, something he wishes he could banish so it never happens again. “How are you okay already?”  
  
“Maybe your hugs don’t suck as much as I thought they did,” Pidge says, with another giggle.  
  
Keith rolls his eyes. Pidge sits up and takes off her glasses to wipe her face. She tries to clean her glasses too, but the fabric of her shirt just smears the dirt and smudges the lens further, so Keith takes them and wipes them off on what is probably the last clean part of his t-shirt.  
  
“Thank you,” Pidge says in a quiet voice as he hands her glasses back to her.  
  
He knows she’s not talking about the glasses.  
  
“No problem,” he says. “And, um, if you ever want to talk or something, you can come to me.”  
  
Pidge’s brow furrows.  
  
“I mean.” He shrugs, avoiding her gaze. “I kinda get what it’s like to miss your older brother. Cause of. You know.”  
  
Despite his awkward delivery he had expected this to be somewhat comforting, but Pidge just looks horrified.  
  
“Oh my god,” she says. “Oh my god, I totally forgot—I’m sorry, I can’t believe I’m sitting here crying over my family to you when you—Keith, I’m so sorry—”  
  
“It’s fine—” he starts to say, but she cuts him off.  
  
“It’s not fine,” she says fiercely. “It’s horrible and awful and the worst thing ever and—and if you want to talk about it you can come to me too.”  
  
“Cool,” Keith says, then inwardly cringes and says, “I mean, thanks.”  
  
For a long moment they sit in silence, and then:  
  
“We’ll find them,” Pidge says suddenly. “Both of them.”  
  
Keith looks at her. Her eyes are blazing, bright hazel in a bright sunburned face.  
  
“Yeah,” he says, and for the first time since Shiro went missing again he smiles at the thought of him. “We will.” He sees the aamfruit resting atop its leaf pile. “Hey, eat your fruit. I don’t want to have cut up my hands for nothing.”  
  
“Okay, _dad_ ,” Pidge says, though when she picks up the aamfruit and starts to peel it, the corner of her mouth is quirked up in a smile.

.^.  
  
It doesn’t take long for Pidge to finish the aamfruit. After peeling it she tries to offer half to Keith, but he shakes his head.  
  
“I’m not hungry,” he lies. Pidge needs it more than he does; he’ll be fine until they can get back to the castle ship.  
  
Pidge looks as if she wants to argue, but her stomach growls noisily and she concedes defeat.  
  
“Okay,” she says, and eats the entire aamfruit in a matter of a minute or two. She sighs, a smile stretching across her face. “Wow, Coran wasn’t joking about cooling properties. I feel much better.”  
  
“Good,” Keith says. He glances up at the three suns through the treetops. “It’s getting kinda late. We should probably start heading back.”  
  
Her pleased expression fades. She looks back down the path. “How long of a walk do you think it is to the castle ship?”  
  
Keith shrugs. “I don’t know. Probably a mile or so. I wasn’t really counting.”  
  
“Oh,” Pidge says, bleakly. She takes a deep breath, forces a clearly fake smile onto her face. “Then we’d better get going!”  
  
She gets to her feet, a little clumsily. Despite the aamfruit she still looks exhausted, still sweaty and dirty and far too small for how much she has been through in the past hour.  
  
_In the past year_ , Keith realizes. _In the past several years_.  
  
“I can carry you,” he says, without thinking about it.  
  
Pidge blinks owlishly at him.  
  
“I’m not talking down to you,” he adds hastily. “I know you can walk all the way back and you’re just as capable as any of us but. I dunno.” He shrugs. “I just thought I’d offer if you’re tired.”  
  
Pidge wavers for a moment, then says, all in a rush as if she’s embarrassed, “Okay but as soon as you’re tired you tell me and I’ll walk.”  
  
“I will,” Keith promises, though he has zero intention of keeping it. “Come on.”  
  
He sits up on his knees and she comes up behind him to clamber onto his back.  
  
“You hanging on?”  
  
She puts her arms around his neck. “Yeah.”  
  
He stands, waits to let her adjust so she’s clinging to his back like a koala. She’s lighter than he’d expected, which is worrisome. He makes a mental note to pay more attention at mealtimes to make sure she’s eating enough.  
  
“All right, let’s go,” he says, and sets off down the path.

.^.  
  
It turns out that Pidge loves piggyback rides.  
  
“I feel so tall,” she says happily after a few minutes of contented silence. “I should ask Hunk to carry me around like this.”  
  
“I can do it on the castle ship too sometimes, if you want,” Keith says.  
  
“Yeah, but with you it’s like, tall lite. If Hunk carried me I’d be _really_ tall.”  
  
Keith scowls. “Are you calling me short?”  
  
“I’m not _calling_ you short,” she corrects, and Keith can _hear_ the upcoming joke in her voice. “You just _are_ short.”  
  
“I will drop you in a pile of dirt,” Keith threatens over her ensuing giggles. Despite his words he’s smiling. “Lance is right, you’re a gremlin.”  
  
Pidge pinches his arm. “No I’m not!” she protests. “He’s just mad cause I always beat him in Killbot Phantasm.” She puts her arm back around his neck. “Which reminds me, you should play with us sometime. I need more people to beat.”  
  
He expects an excuse to pop into his head, the way it always does whenever anyone asks him to spend time with them, but instead he says, “Sure.”  
  
Pidge keeps talking, goes on about destroying Lance in Killbot Phantasm and coming up with possible ways she can bribe Hunk into giving her piggyback rides and listing facts about her favorite scientists.

(“Turing’s incredible, of course,” she says, “but Ada Lovelace was really cool too.” Her voice turns sly. “I guess you could say I _ada_ mantly _love_ her.”  
  
Keith stops walking.  
  
“What happened?” Pidge asks. “Am I too heavy? Should I get down?”  
  
“No,” he says. “I just need to stop and process how bad that pun was.”  
  
Pidge pinches his arm again with an indignant huff. Keith chuckles and keeps walking, and she goes back to gushing about Rosalind Franklin.)  
  
After around twenty minutes Keith’s back starts to ache. He slows down a bit, not enough for Pidge to notice and feel bad about it, but evidently enough that she starts to feel sleepy, because her sentences start to trail off.  
  
“…maybe…if I help Hunk…with the mouse shower…he’ll carry me around…or…”  
  
She stops talking. Keith feels her grip on him slacken, feels her head slump forward into his neck. Alarmed, he reaches back to hold onto her legs so she won’t fall off, then turns his head to look at her. Her eyes are closed. After a few seconds he hears a soft _snz_.  
  
He pauses, watches her for a second or two. He has a vague memory of being carried like this when he was very small, of being so tired his feet dragged, of being lifted into someone’s arms and falling asleep against their back. He doesn’t remember it ever happening after that.  
  
He doesn’t know the last time someone did this for Pidge, but he’s glad he can do it now.

.^.  
  
Keith walks on for another ten minutes in the forest’s eerie silence. He thinks they should be close to the castle ship by now, but he has a sinking feeling he’d underestimated how far into the forest they’d ventured. The edge of Pidge’s glasses dig into the side of his neck; she is a dead weight on his back now, heavy enough to hurt, and he’s afraid he might have to wake her up, then either ask her to walk or sit for a bit until he’s regained enough strength to carry her the rest of the way.  
  
He knows she won’t let him go with the second option, but he doesn’t want her to have to walk when she’s tired enough to have fallen asleep, so he grits his teeth and puts off waking her up as long as he can.  
  
Just another minute…and another…just until he’s reached that cluster of purple flowers…or that hexagon-shaped plant…or…  
  
Like a vision, Lance emerges from a tiny path behind the hexagon-shaped plant.  
  
Keith blinks. For an instant he thinks he’s just imagining him, but then Lance spots him and grins, shouts “HEY” even though he’s close enough that he could just talk normally, and yup, that’s definitely him.  
  
“Shh,” Keith says in reply. He wants to frown at Lance for almost waking up Pidge, but his lips curve into a smile anyway. “Pidge is sleeping.”  
  
Lance’s bright smile drops. “Oh.” He comes close—  
  
( _too close too close too close_ , part of Keith’s brain blares, panicked)  
  
( _calm the fuck down_ , says another part, rolling its eyes)  
  
—and brushes Pidge’s hair off her forehead, dislodging the leaf stuck in it and sending it fluttering to the ground. She doesn’t stir.  
  
“Damn, she really is out.” Lance’s brow crinkles as he takes in the tension in how Keith is holding himself, sees the sweat running down his neck and the exhaustion in the line of his mouth. “How long have you been carrying her?”  
  
Keith feels weirdly embarrassed. “Um. Not long.”  
  
Lance raises an eyebrow.  
  
“Maybe half an hour,” he mumbles, and Lance makes a soft sound, something between tsk and oh. It makes Keith’s stomach twist; he’s still peculiarly self-conscious, but he’s also pleased at the thought of Lance worrying about him, of Lance seeing him care for someone so intensely.  
  
( _I could take care of you too_ , whispers the corny part of Keith’s mind, _or at least I could try_ , and for once the eye-rolling, skeptical part of his mind stays quiet)  
  
“Hunk and Allura got caught up talking about the electrical properties of this bizarre flower we found, but they should be back soon,” Lance says. His attention is back on Pidge; he smooths her hair down, careful not to bother her. “We’re still almost a half mile from the castle ship so you shouldn’t carry her the rest of the way, but if we trade off it’ll disturb her too much. But I’m pretty sure Hunk can carry her by himself for that long with no problem.”  
  
Keith nods. Now that he’s standing still it occurs to him just how tired he is; his legs and back ache, his shirt is uncomfortably sticky with sweat, and there’s a gnawing hunger in his belly. Lance is still looking concernedly at Pidge.  
  
“Wow, she is super sunburnt,” he says. “I hope Alteans have aloe.”  
  
“She was feeling kinda shitty all around,” Keith says. He hesitates; he isn’t sure how much Pidge would be okay with him telling the others. “She was really tired and hungry and dysphoric and she, uh. She misses her family a lot.”  
  
Lance looks between her and Keith. His eyes are soft, a little sad.  
  
“We can fix some of that,” he says. “I’ll get Hunk to make her something better than food goo. And she likes when me and her and Allura do face masks so we can do those too. And I’ll let her beat me at Killbot Phantasm.”  
  
Keith snickers. “You’ll _let_ her beat you?”  
  
Lance gives him the stink eye. “Are you implying what I think you’re implying?”  
  
“I’m not implying anything,” Keith says, “but you should know that Pidge spent half our walk here trash talking your video game skills.”  
  
“How dare she,” Lance says, outraged. “You know what, I take everything back. We should just wake her up and make her walk.”  
  
Keith snickers again. Lance’s indignation fades and he smiles, something small and fond as he smooths Pidge’s hair again, and a thought flashes into Keith’s head, something soft and warm and terrifying and fucking _embarrassing_ , because—  
  
( _no_ , says the eye-rolling, skeptical part of his brain, shaking its head emphatically, _no no no no absolutely not you corny piece of_ —)  
  
(— _but it’s so nice_ , whispers the corny-piece-of-shit part of his mind, quiet and enticing, _it’s so so so nice, doesn’t this feel so domestic, it’s almost like you two are together and looking after your kid_ —)  
  
( _NO_ , the first part of his brain roars, and Keith has to make a massive effort to pull himself back into the present)  
  
(there is heat spreading rapidly over his face, and it has nothing to do with the three suns slowly inching their way to the horizon.)  
  
Thankfully for Keith’s aching limbs and burning face and rattled nerves, Hunk and Allura come round the hexagon plant at this moment. Allura is carrying the supply backpack now and Hunk’s pockets are bulging with what Keith assumes are interesting plants they’d found.  
  
“Hey, guys!” Hunk says, too loudly.  
  
Lance shushes him, gesturing at Pidge. Hunk whispers an apology, and then Lance explains to him and Allura what Keith had already told him. It’s agreed that Hunk will carry Pidge the rest of the way back.  
  
“She likes to braid hair, doesn’t she?” Allura says, as Lance gently lifts Pidge off Keith’s back. Pidge’s eyes open a sliver and she starts to mumble something, but Lance says something to her, too quiet for Keith to hear, and she dozes off again by the time he’s secured her on Hunk’s back. “I’ll see if the space mice can find some ribbons and maybe we can make a party out of it.”  
  
Lance agrees, says something about face masks, but Keith tunes it out in favor of taking the opportunity to stretch. It feels strange to not be carrying so much weight anymore. He twists from side to side, rolls his shoulders and cracks his back.  
  
Lance makes a weird noise, a bit like being strangled. Keith blinks at him with concern; he looks flushed.  
  
“Are you okay?” Keith asks. “You look weird.”  
  
Lance coughs. His ears are violently red.  
  
“Yeah, it’s just—it’s just hot,” he says.  
  
“I’ll bet it is,” Hunk mutters.  
  
It means nothing to Keith, who looks between them with puzzlement, but Allura hides a smile behind her hand, and Lance’s ears turn even redder  
  
“ _Dude_ ,” he says to Hunk, with an air of betrayal.  
  
Hunk ignores him. “We should get going,” he says, and sets off in the direction of the castle ship. Allura follows, then Lance, then Keith, who lags a bit so he can pop his knuckles, which are stiff from holding onto Pidge’s legs so she wouldn’t fall off. He flexes his fingers, cracks his knuckles, and—damn.  
  
“Shit,” he says under his breath, as his hastily staunched cuts re-open and start bleeding. He wraps his hands in the end of his t-shirt as he did before, winces at how much they ache and sting, glances up every so often and takes a few steps at a time to make sure he’s not falling too far behind the others, wonders if it’d be a dumb idea to spit on the cuts to try to wash the dirt away from them—  
  
“Keith, what the fuck.”  
  
He glances up and freezes. Lance is standing right in front of him ( _too close too close too close_ ), staring down at Keith’s hands with an annoyed expression.  
  
“You should have mentioned your hands are tore up,” he chides. “Stay here.”  
  
He runs over to Allura, has a short conversation with her that Keith is too far away to hear, then takes the supply backpack from her and comes back to Keith.  
  
“They’ll go on,” he says, setting the backpack on a nearby boulder. “We should wrap your hands first.”  
  
“It’s fine,” Keith says automatically. “I can just wait until we get back—”  
  
“Your hands are bleeding everywhere, Keith, it’s not _fine_ ,” Lance interrupts, rolling his eyes. He unzips the backpack and takes out a bright blue bottle. “How’d you get hurt?”  
  
Keith’s stomach is already squirming at the thought of Lance’s attention so focused on him, and he knows what he’s about to say will only intensify that. He can’t think of a good lie, though, so he says, reluctantly, “Pidge was hungry and we saw some aamfruit and I climbed the tree to get it for her.”  
  
Lance had been occupied with opening the bottle and pouring out a dollop of blue goop into his palm, but at Keith’s words he looks up. His eyes are soft again.  
  
“Ah” is all he says, and reaches for Keith’s right hand. Right before he takes it it occurs to Keith that the only other time Lance had held his hand was when he was half conscious and they were both wearing full gloves. This is different, is something Lance can’t pretend to forget about later, is something that involves skin touching skin, and even though Keith knows Lance isn’t holding his hand for any sort of romantic reason it’s still startling, still something he finds himself holding his breath for.  
  
Lance takes his hand in his, and Keith—  
  
—Keith remembers a romance he read a few years ago, hidden away from his foster family because he didn’t want them to make fun of him—  
  
—remembers the main character describing the electricity that shot through him when his love interest held his hand for the first time—  
  
—remembers scoffing at how dramatic it was, though part of him had been intrigued—  
  
—intrigued by what he now knows it a wild understatement.  
  
( _this is not electricity_ , he thinks, suppressing a shiver. _this is lightning_.)  
  
Lance seems unaffected by the thunderstorm crackling through Keith. He rubs the blue goop over Keith’s hand, glove and all. It’s soothing, feels clean and cool against his cuts.  
  
“Allura said this’ll disinfect it,” Lance explains. “It’ll clear away the dirt like water would, and reduce any swelling.”  
  
He lets go of Keith’s hand, reaches for the other and rubs the goop on it too. Keith watches him work in silence. He feels like he should say something, but he’s afraid if he opens his mouth he’ll say something dumb, say something about Lance’s forearms, or Lance’s hair, or Lance’s shoulders, or—  
  
“Your hands are kinda small,” Lance says, out of the blue.  
  
Keith is so grateful for the distraction he almost shouts his response. “No they’re not, they’re normal. Your hands are just fucking huge.”  
  
“Chill, I wasn’t making fun of them,” Lance says. He lets go of Keith’s hand, goes back to the backpack and pulls out a small towel to wipe the residual goop off his hands. “Though you are right, I do have weirdly big hands. I could fit in my papi’s gloves when I was twelve, and he’s really tall. My mami says I’m gonna be a beanpole by the time I’m done growing.”  
  
“You’re already pretty tall,” Keith says.  
  
“Taller than you,” Lance specifies, turning to grin and shoot a finger gun at him, “which is all that matters.”  
  
“Shut up,” Keith says, but there’s no bite to it, and Lance’s grin just grows.  
  
He pulls a roll of gauze out of the backpack. It looks different from the gauze that exists on earth; it’s pale yellow and glowing a little. Lance rips off a sizeable amount and comes back to Keith.  
  
“Seriously,” Lance says, “I really do hope I grow more. Otherwise I’ll just have freakishly large hands. Though I guess that’s not necessarily a bad thing.” He waggles his eyebrows, smirks. “Cause you know what they say about a guy with big hands.”  
  
Keith gives him a dead stare.  
  
“Big ego,” he says flatly.  
  
Lance barks a laugh. Warmth blooms within Keith, spreading through him from head to toe, because he can count on his fingers the number of times he’s made Lance laugh. It feels fantastic every time, feels like the first time every time, the rush of delight and satisfaction just as fierce.  
  
“All right, mullet, I’ll give you that one,” he says. He reaches for Keith’s right hand again. “Okay, so Allura said this gauze has like, super speedy healing properties in it? If I just wrap this around your cuts it’ll have them healed by tomorrow.”  
  
“Cool.”  
  
Lance drapes the gauze over his arm. He takes Keith’s hand in one of his own, and with the other moves to pull off Keith’s glove—  
  
Keith’s voice feels too loud, too harsh. “What are you doing?”  
  
Lance stops, blinks at him.  
  
“I can’t wrap the gauze around your gloves,” he says. “Allura said I should put the blue goop over them so it’ll clean it but the gauze won’t help much if it’s over your gloves too.”  
  
Keith doesn’t know why his mouth feels so dry all of a sudden.  
  
“Oh” is all he says.  
  
“I mean.” Lance sounds hesitant. “I guess I can wrap it over your gloves too, it just might take longer to heal—”  
  
“No, it’s fine,” Keith interrupts, and he still feels like he’s talking too loudly. “It’s—sorry, I was just surprised. It’s fine.”  
  
Lance doesn’t move. “Are you sure?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“You don’t have to if you’d rather not, I can just wrap it around the gloves and I’m sure it’ll be okay—”  
  
“It’s _fine_ ,” Keith interrupts again. He’s not sure if he’s trying to reassure Lance or himself. “Just get it over with.”  
  
Lance nods, looks down at the glove, starts to pull it off. The fabric tugs at a cut and Keith has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from hissing in pain. Lance must have sensed something, though, because he redoubles his grasp on Keith’s hand and pulls at a different part of the glove so it comes off more smoothly, trying to ease the friction against the cuts and scrapes on Keith’s skin. Keith doesn’t know whether to be surprised that Lance noticed his discomfort or pleased that he’s being so careful or—  
  
—or confused—  
  
—because the longer they stand here, with Lance’s hands so warm and gentle and intent on making this as painless as possible, the less the forest’s silence is eerie, and the more it feels tense—not in a bad way, not like the tense silence before an ambush, but something more like anticipation, something that sits in the pit of Keith’s stomach and makes him feel jumpy and on edge, something that makes him thankful for the suns sinking over the horizon and casting a sharp orange glow over them both, because the light hides the heat rising to his cheeks as he watches Lance ease his glove off.  
  
After what feels like an eternity Lance pulls the glove all the way off. He tucks it into his pocket, then starts to wrap the gauze around Keith’s hand. The movement is somewhat rhythmic, almost mesmerizing, though Keith thinks it’s not the action so much as the person; Lance could fucking yawn and Keith would stare and stare and stare, caught—  
  
He finishes wrapping Keith’s hand.  
  
“One down, one to go,” he says, and he sounds perfectly normal, and as he takes Keith’s other hand and starts to pull off the glove Keith can’t decide if he’s grateful for Lance not losing his mind the way he currently is or disappointed that this doesn’t seem to affect him in the same way.  
  
Which—it shouldn’t. It shouldn’t affect him like this. Keith is just being pathetic, because it’s not a big deal. Lance is just wrapping Keith’s hands, and that’s not a big deal, it’s not, they’re just—they’re just—two bros—standing really close— _really really close when did he get so close was Lance always standing so close_ —alone in a super quiet forest at sunset— _twilight now, almost, and oh oh no they really shouldn’t be here when it’s dark, not when Lance is so close_ —one of whom is blushing furiously as the other wraps his hands.  
  
Just. Two bros. Like that vine Pidge keeps quoting. Two bros, one of whom has to fight the desperate urge to say something catastrophically dumb as the other pulls off his glove and wraps gauze around his hand.  
  
His left hand is more cut up than the right, so it takes Lance longer to cover all the cuts. He re-wraps it a couple times, making sure every tiny scrape is tucked in, and Keith wants to say a hundred things at once, say _hurry up_ and _slow down_ and _stop being so fucking fussy about this_ and _I like when you fuss over me_.  
  
After another eternity Lance turns Keith’s hand over to wrap the gauze taut, and Keith might be imagining it but it seems like he’s lingering, as if he doesn’t want to let go of his hand, and another thought flashes into Keith’s head, just as soft and warm and terrifying and embarrassing as the one he’d had when Lance had smoothed Pidge’s hair: one of Lance’s head bent over Keith’s hand, his lips pressed to his palm, or his fingers, or the back of his hand, his gaze lifted to look directly at Keith as he does it, with eyes that are bright and brown and sincere as he treats him like some kind of fairy tale prince—  
  
Keith takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, opens them, tells himself to stop being so fucking corny, tells himself he’ll be glad when Lance lets go.  
  
But Lance doesn’t let go. Instead he takes Keith’s other hand too, so he’s cupping both of his hands in his larger ones.  
  
“All better,” he says.  
  
He looks him right in the eyes and smiles, and Keith’s heart hammers, and his breath catches, and then Lance’s smile is fading, and they’re just—staring—brown eyes meeting dark ones—and the suns have set by now and they’re standing so close together in the twilight—  
  
—and Lance’s forearms are still strong and sun-bronzed and his hair is still curled around his neck and his shoulders are still pleasingly broad—  
  
—and his hands are soft and his eyes are soft and his mouth _looks_ soft and Keith is staring staring staring—  
  
—and his face is burning and his heart is pounding so loud he's afraid Lance can hear it and Keith _wants_ —  
  
—and Lance is still standing close, so close, close enough that if Keith leans forward and closes his eyes and tilts his head and holds his breath then he could—  
  
—then he could bump his nose hard against Lance’s, because apparently his efforts to be smooth are overshadowed by his enormous fucking incompetence.  
  
(Keith has never genuinely wanted to die, but he thinks he might want to now.)  
  
In one motion he opens his eyes, yanks his hands out of Lance’s, and steps back so fast he trips over nothing. He catches himself before he falls, horribly aware of both his stinging nose and the awful feeling that if he stays here any longer his eyes might start stinging too.  
  
(—so _fucking_ incompetent—how the hell do you _miss_ —)  
  
“We should head back!” he half shouts, startlingly loud in the silent darkness.  
  
Lance hasn’t moved. He’s staring at Keith, expression unreadable. Keith wishes he would say something, wishes he would crack a joke or agree that they should head back or even make fun of him for what just happened, instead of just standing there with that horribly blank expression on his face.  
  
“Cause everyone’s—everyone’s probably waiting for us,” Keith says after an uncomfortable few seconds. He crosses his arms, uncrosses them when he realizes he can’t walk easily like that. “So we should, um. We should go.”  
  
Without waiting for a response Keith skirts past him and starts to walk down the path, frustration and humiliation and lingering want mixing confusingly in his gut—  
  
—and Lance comes to life, as if awoken from a deep sleep.  
  
“Wait!”  
  
Keith doesn’t stop walking but Lance runs up to him, catches his arm, forces him to turn around to face him. Keith avoids his gaze; his face is still flushed and his heart is still hammering and his skin is still buzzing and he can’t bear to look at him when he’s so overwhelmed.  
  
“We have to get back—” he begins, but then Lance tugs him close and his mouth lands on Keith’s and holy fucking shit Lance is kissing him, Lance is _kissing him_ , and Keith’s brain has officially gone on strike and he’s frozen in place like some kind of idiot—  
  
Lance pulls away. His ears are red.  
  
“Sorry!” he blurts. He looks mortified. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have just done that, I should have asked first, I just thought—”  
  
Keith’s brain finally kicks back into gear. He curls his fists in the front of Lance’s shirt, pulls him back to him, and kisses him.  
  
Well. He presses his lips to the corner of the Lance’s mouth. Keith doesn’t have any kissing experience (unless he counts the time a boy kissed his cheek in first grade on a dare or the time his fourth grade teacher made them all act in Sleeping Beauty and he had to kiss the prince’s hand to wake him up, which he does not), so he doesn’t really know what he’s doing and he panics at the last second at the prospect of putting his mouth on Lance’s. Embarrassment prickles through him again, but at least this time he didn’t bump his nose, and at least this time Lance moves, helps Keith with this as he helps him with all things.  
  
( _truly the ideal right hand man_ , one part of Keith’s brain whispers)  
  
( _stop being so fucking corny_ , says the other part, scowling)  
  
( _fucking make me_ , says the first part, and before the second part could respond Keith’s brain stops working again, because—)  
  
“ _Oh_ ,” Keith says aloud, a sigh into Lance’s mouth. He feels Lance’s grin against his lips and he wants to be annoyed by his smugness but he can’t be, not when Lance is cupping his face so gently, not when his mouth is moving so softly with his, not when Keith’s hands are sliding up to Lance’s neck, running his fingers through the curls at his nape. He can feel the sweat running along Lance’s skin there and it occurs to him that it should be gross but it isn’t, not really, when his mouth is so sweet and his skin is so smooth.  
  
When they break apart it’s slow, reluctant, Lance’s lips lingering on his. Keith feels him rest his forehead against his own, feels Lance’s hands slide down so his arms are wrapped around Keith’s shoulders, but Keith keeps still, keeps his eyes closed. He’s half afraid if he opens them Lance won’t actually be there, that the past few minutes have been some kind of mirage induced by the heat.  
  
“Hey,” Lance whispers.  
  
Keith opens his eyes, braces himself for everything to disappear, but it doesn’t. He’s still standing here in the dark, silent forest, pressed so close to Lance he can smell the faint scent of Altean shampoo in his hair. Either it’s an extremely persistent mirage, or this is real.  
  
He untangles his fingers from Lance’s curls, moves his hands to rest on Lance’s shoulders instead. He kind of wants to run his hands over them, feel for himself the broadness he’s been admiring for so long, but then Lance speaks and the thought flies out of Keith’s head.  
  
“I like you,” Lance says, quiet and soft in the dark. “I like you a lot.”  
  
He can feel happiness slowly filling him, slow and thick, like pouring honey into a jar. The sensation is overwhelming, makes his heart stutter along with his words. “I—I like you too.”  
  
“Actually I think I might be in love with you,” Lance goes on, more rushed than his last sentence, and the words crackle and dance through Keith like sparks on a flame, “but I get if you think it’s too soon for me to say that, which it probably is, so we can just pretend I didn’t—”  
  
“No, I—”  
  
Keith stops, feels his face burn. Lance blinks expectantly at him.  
  
“You?” he prompts after a moment when it becomes clear Keith isn’t going to continue.  
  
“I—also—” Keith breaks off again. It’s not that he doesn’t want to say it or that he doesn’t believe it, it’s that he hadn’t let himself think of words like _love_ before, had always shut down his thoughts before they could present him with such a terrifying term.  
  
But now that Lance has said it, now that Keith is letting himself think it, he knows it’s right. There could be no other word for this contentment that curls through him when he’s around Lance.  
  
He wants so badly to say it, but the words keep sticking in his throat. He tries again anyway, for Lance’s sake.  
  
“I think I might—be—you know.”  
  
He wants to physically sink into the ground at how lame it sounds, but Lance is beaming, big and bright, his brown eyes shining.  
  
“Be in love with me?” he confirms.  
  
“Um. Yeah.”  
  
Lance’s smile grows brighter, so much so that Keith has the urge to check if the three suns have risen again.  
  
“Sorry I can’t say it,” he mutters.  
  
“It’s okay,” Lance says. He kisses the tip of Keith’s nose; Keith blinks, startled by the gesture and the way such a tiny kiss could send such a huge gush of warmth through him when he’d been kissing Lance’s mouth such a short time ago. “There’s no rush. I want you to be comfortable.”  
  
“Okay,” Keith says, relieved. “Cause I do, I just—it’s just hard for me to say that kind of stuff.”  
  
“I know.” Lance tilts his head forward a little, touches his nose to Keith’s.  
  
Keith blinks again, then closes his eyes, waits. Nothing happens. He opens his eyes to see Lance grinning at him again. He feels his face grow hot.  
  
“Shut up,” he says, though Lance hasn’t even opened his mouth.  
  
“Were you waiting?”  
  
“Shut _up_.”  
  
“You can kiss me too, you know,” Lance adds, then, his grin widening, “though maybe this time try not to ram into my nose.”  
  
The feeling that shoots through him isn’t embarrassment this time, but something softer, more an eye roll than a cringe.  
  
“I hate you so much,” Keith says, “and I take back everything I said earlier,” but then Lance laughs, tips forward to kiss him again, and he decides that maybe everything he said earlier can stay after all.

.^.  
  
After what feels like seconds and hours at the same time, they remember they still have to go back to the castle ship.  
  
“They probably think we’re dead,” Lance says. “We really should head back now.”  
  
He lets go of Keith, goes back to get the supply backpack. With Lance gone Keith feels bereft, almost unbalanced, so when Lance rejoins him he reaches out and takes his hand in his.  
  
For a moment they just look at each other.

“Cool,” Lance says, and Keith feels him lace their fingers together as best he can with the gauze wrapped around Keith’s hands. “I wouldn’t have thought you were one for holding hands, but I can dig it.”  
  
Keith rolls his eyes, though he’s pleased by how flustered Lance looks by his gesture. They set off down the path together. The forest isn’t as dark as Keith was expecting; many of the plants glow in the dark and there are tiny firefly-like bugs zooming around and illuminating the path.  
  
“I hope everyone didn’t eat without us, or at least that they saved us some food,” Lance says. “I’m starving.”  
  
“I thought you taste-tested plants with Hunk and Allura.”  
  
“Yeah, but it turns out most of these plants have to be cooked before they taste any good,” Lance says, “so I just ended up eating a couple.” He tugs Keith to the right to sidestep a boulder blocking part of the path. “I also hope we make it back before I drown in my own sweat. I can’t wait to take a shower.”  
  
“Me too,” Keith says.  
  
Lance gives him a look.  
  
“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?” he asks, with a crooked grin.  
  
Keith shrugs. “Probably not.”  
  
Lance huffs. “You’re no fun.” His voice turns serious. “Hey, though, for real, there’s no rush or pressure or anything. I joke around a lot but your comfort comes first. Okay?”  
  
“We already talked about this,” Keith says, a little exasperated. He’s touched by Lance’s insistence too, though, so he says, “But yeah, okay.”  
  
The rest of their conversation on the way back is idle, catching each other up on what happened on their respective explorations (“We found a neon green flower that buzzed,” Lance says, “and I dared Allura to touch it and she touched it with _both palms_ and it made this really loud cracking sound and Hunk and I thought she’d gotten fucking electrocuted but apparently it just tickled? Nature is wild”). When they come to the edge of the forest and within sight of the castle ship they can see the door is open and the ramp is down. A figure is standing at the bottom of it, looking in their direction.  
  
Keith pulls his hand out of Lance’s. Lance blinks over at him.  
  
“I don’t want to tell everyone just yet,” Keith says. It strikes him that this might be a shitty move, to kiss someone and imply you love them and then yank your hand away and tell them to keep it a secret, but he doesn’t want to explain himself to the others right now and he wants to keep Lance’s love to himself for a little while and fuck he really should explain this but he doesn’t know how—  
  
“That’s okay,” Lance says, and he’s smiling, and Keith’s distress vanishes as quickly as it came. “I’m cool with telling them whenever, but we can keep it to ourselves as long as you want.”  
  
Keith nods. The two of them approach the castle ship and see that it’s Allura standing on the ramp.  
  
“I was just about to come looking for the two of you,” she says, sounding relieved. “I was worried something had happened.”  
  
“We got lost,” Lance lies.  
  
Allura raises an eyebrow. “You were on a direct path out of the forest.”  
  
“Were we?” Lance’s voice is airy. “Huh. Weird that we got lost, then, right, Keith?”  
  
“Uh.” Keith coughs. “Right.”  
  
Allura stares at them. They stare belligerently back.  
  
“All right,” she says finally. “You two should clean up and come to the dining room when you’re ready. We waited for Pidge before eating and she’s only just woken up.”  
  
She turns to go in. As soon as she’s looking away from them Lance winks at Keith, then leads the way inside the castle ship.

.^.  
  
The evening passes pleasantly. The paladins eat a delicious dinner cooked with the plants Allura and Hunk found, then everyone piles into the lounge on their mission to make Pidge feel better. Lance brings his face masks, Hunk brings gadgets for her to tinker with, Allura and the mice bring ribbons and nail polish.  
  
Keith brings himself.  
  
“Sorry,” he says, though he’s not exactly sure he’s apologizing for. “I’m sorry you feel bad but I don’t really know what to do.”  
  
“You already do a lot,” Pidge assures him. She gives him a hug, too quick for him to reciprocate, then goes to sit next to Lance so he can put the face mask on her.  
  
The next hour passes in lazy conversation and minor shenanigans (Pidge makes several attempts to write on Lance’s face with nail polish and Lance makes several attempts to put face mask goop in her hair as revenge). Keith mostly just sits on the couch and watches, occasionally adds to the conversation or gives Pidge ideas for what to write on Lance’s forehead in sparkly blue polish.  
  
(Lance gasps in indignation at him taking her side, but when the others are distracted by the elaborate hairstyle Chulatt and Chuchule give to Allura, he flashes Keith a quick smile, soft and gentle.)  
  
In the end he is dragged into the fray anyway. Pidge wants to braid someone’s hair but the hairstyle the mice gave to Allura is too beautiful to take apart, so she turns to Keith.  
  
“Please?” she asks.  
  
Keith crinkles his nose. Pidge widens her eyes, puppy-dog style.  
  
“ _Please_?”  
  
He twists his mouth. Pidge clasps her hands, bounces up and down in place.  
  
“Please please please please please—”  
  
He sighs, slides off the couch and onto the floor in front of her, and she cheers.

.^.  
  
It’s not so bad. It’s actually kind of nice to have his hair out of his face for once. And even though Lance falls off the couch with how hard he’s cackling at the sight of Keith with a bright pink ribbon braided into his hair, Keith does like that he’s managed to make Lance laugh three times in one day.

.^.  
  
When they eventually disband and head to their respective rooms, Keith lingers outside his door. He feels like he should say something to Lance before going to sleep, though he doesn’t know what.  
  
Lance comes into the hallway , sees him standing there, beams.  
  
“I was hoping you’d wait,” he says. He comes up to Keith, kisses his cheek. “Good night, boyfriend.”  
  
_Boyfriend_. The word is startling, though not in a bad way. “Good night,” Keith says back, then, softly, the word strange but wonderful in his mouth, “boyfriend.”  
  
“I hope you have sweet dreams,” Lance says. He opens the door to his room, then right before going in, says, with a wink and a smirk, “Sweet dreams of me.”  
  
“You wish,” Keith says, snorting, though as he sees the door close, hears Lance half laugh, half outraged cry, he thinks, _of what else_?

.^.  
  
Keith emerges from his room the next morning to find Lance waiting outside. He’s leaning against the wall between their doors, one hand in his pocket as he scrolls through his tablet with the other. It looks like he’s going through photos he took with the Garmians at the meeting the day before.  
  
“Hi,” Keith says.  
  
Lance looks up. “Hi!” he says, much too cheerfully for how early it is. He sticks the tablet in his pocket. “Come on, I have to unwrap the gauze and Allura says there’s some kinda green goop in the infirmary that’ll get rid of any lingering soreness or aches.”  
  
“I can do it myself,” Keith says, but he lets Lance take his hand and lead him down the hall anyway.  
  
“I know,” Lance says, as they turn the corner and approach the door of the infirmary, “but I haven’t seen you for hours and I don’t want to go to breakfast until I have the opportunity to kiii”—his voice rises, stretching out the i with weird emphasis—“iiiinsult you to your face!”  
  
Keith blinks. “What—”  
  
Lance lets go of his hand as Hunk comes into view, staggering down the hallway while carrying what looks like enough machine parts to build another castle ship.  
  
“Make way, man carrying precarious pile coming through!” he calls. “Hey guys, good morning,” he adds as he passes by them. “Pidge and Allura are making breakfast today with more of the plants we got, they’ll said it’ll be ready soon.”  
  
“Cool, good to know,” says Lance. As soon as Hunk rounds the corner he takes Keith’s hand again, pretending to wipe his forehead with his free hand. “That was close.” He tugs Keith towards the infirmary. “Come on, let’s go.”  
  
Once they’re inside Lance makes Keith sit on one of the examining tables.  
  
“This is unnecessary,” Keith says. He sits anyway, content to be a bit of a pushover for now if it means Lance will fuss over him.  
  
“I’m trying to be a good nurse,” Lance says, rummaging through a cabinet by the table. He mutters to himself as he sifts through the bottles. “Allura said the label’s got a triangle on it with a hexagon inside—aha!”  
  
He pulls out a round bottle and comes over to where Keith is sitting.  
  
“Oh look,” he says, grinning. “You’re finally taller than me.”  
  
Keith scowls and tries to shove at his chest, but Lance just catches his hand and kisses it instead. Even over the bandages Keith’s skin tingles at the contact.  
  
“Is that my kinsult?” he asks, as Lance puts down the bottle and starts to unwrap the gauze from his hand.  
  
Lance looks up at him. “What?”  
  
“You said you don’t want to go to breakfast without kinsulting me to my face.”  
  
Lance squints at him. Keith keeps his face as blank as possible.  
  
“No,” Lance says finally. His expression is flat too, though Keith swears he sees the corner of his mouth twitch. He goes back to unwrapping the gauze. “Your kinsult will be forthcoming.”  
  
Keith bites his lip to keep from smiling. “I look forward to it.”  
  
“You should,” Lance says with a dignified air. “I’m a very talented kinsulter. Ask anyone.”  
  
“I don’t know how I feel about my—b-boyfriend”—he trips over the word, feels the pleasing foreignness of it even though he’s already said it once—“kinsulting so many people that I can ask _anyone_ about his talent.”  
  
Lance removes the gauze entirely and puts it on the table. He takes Keith’s other hand and starts unwrapping it. “Maybe not _anyone_ ,” he reconsiders. “Maybe just a couple people.” He sneaks a glance at him, grins almost shyly. “Though none of them ever kinsulted me back as well as you do.”  
  
(it’s stupid and dumb and corny as fuck, and Keith really really wishes Lance wasn’t holding his now bare hands, because between his words and his touch he can feel his face heating up for the hundredth time in the past twenty-four hours)  
  
“Shut up,” he says, because he’s already filled his romantic flirty quota for the rest of the month.  
  
“Gladly,” Lance says. He finishes unwrapping the gauze on Keith’s other hand and puts it beside the first pile of gauze on the table. “Cause you know, kinsulting someone is actually a really effective way of shutting someone up, without making anyone— _ah_.”  
  
(this time Keith doesn’t ram into his nose, or kiss the corner of his mouth, or close his eyes and wait. this time he pushes forward, clutches at Lance’s hoodie with newly-healed hands to bring him closer, kisses him right on the mouth with zero hesitation.)  
  
“Hot diggity dog,” Lance says dreamily, when Keith pulls away. “You don’t do anything by halves, do you? Ace pilot, ace paladin, ace kinsulter.”  
  
“Are we still saying that?” Keith asks. “Can’t we just saying kissing now?”  
  
“No, Keith,” Lance says, with a sigh. He uncaps the round bottle and thunks out green goop onto his palm. “Don’t you understand how flirting works?”  
  
“K-flirting,” Keith tries out.  
  
Lance snorts, though it sounds fond. “Is that supposed to be like kinsulting?”  
  
“Yes,” Keith says.  
  
“Try again,” Lance suggests. “You can think of something while I rub this goop on your hands.”  
  
Without waiting for a reply he takes Keith’s hands in both of his and rubs green goop all over them, massaging it into the skin. His head is bent, his focus entirely on soothing any lingering soreness. Keith watches him, his hands healed and his heart warm and a lingering smile at the corners of his mouth, and then a phrase both terrifying and thrilling pops into his head, and his stomach is twisting at the thought of saying it aloud but it’s already bubbling up his throat, the warm contentment within him pushing the words out, tumbling out of his mouth before he can stop them.  
  
“Hey.”  
  
Lance keeps massaging his hands, even though the goop has been completely absorbed by now. “Hm?”  
  
The words are even stranger in his mouth than _boyfriend_ , stranger but more wonderful too. “I love you.”  
  
Lance looks up. He blinks at Keith, astonished, and then a huge grin breaks out across his face, wide and bright and unrestrained.  
  
“You said it,” he says, and the sheer delight in his voice makes Keith’s stomach flip again, more positively this time. “You said it!”  
  
He brings Keith’s hands to his lips and kisses them, once, twice, thrice, and Keith wants to kiss his mouth again, wants to slide off the table this time so when he does it he can press close to Lance, feel his arms wrapped around him like they had been the night before—  
  
“Breakfast is getting cold, my boys!”  
  
Keith yanks his hands out of Lance’s with a jolt. Lance jumps and turns to the door. Coran is standing there, as benign as ever. It doesn’t seem like he saw anything—or if he did, he doesn’t seem to mind it—but Keith feels himself blush anyway.  
  
“Uh.” Lance looks at Keith, at the gauze, at the round bottle, back at Coran. “Yeah, we’re coming, we were just. Um. We were just making sure Keith’s hands are all better.”  
  
There is a beat, too long to be natural.  
  
“Of course,” Coran says, and even his mustache looks knowing. “What else would you be doing?” He turns to leave. “You should come down to the dining room soon! Garmian plants are a special delicacy when prepared in breakfast food.”  
  
“We will,” Lance says. As soon as Coran is gone he turns to Keith. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have left the door open.”  
  
“It’s okay,” Keith says, though he’s still self-conscious about being caught. “They’re all gonna find out eventually anyway.”  
  
“Not until you’re comfortable with it,” Lance says firmly. “I will blackmail Coran if I have to.”  
  
That makes him smile a little. “Blackmail him? Is that even possible?”  
  
“Course it is,” Lance says, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. “I’ll threaten to shave off half his mustache while he sleeps. Or I’ll dig up photos of him wearing tacky clothes from the time he says he was an intergalactic fashion pirate.” He holds out a hand. “Now come on, we should really get to breakfast. We don’t want to miss out on fancy Garmian breakfast food.”  
  
Keith hops down from the table and takes his hand. They stay close to each other until the hallway before the dining room, where they let go of each other and assume the usual distance.  
  
“Love you,” Lance says when they’re at the door.  
  
“Love you too,” Keith says back, and the words are smoother this time, feel as natural as breathing, as natural as flying the Red Lion had felt.  
  
Lance beams at him, then together, separately, they go inside.

.^.  
  
It’s not until later, much later, several weeks later, that Keith realizes he never got his gloves back from Lance.  
  
“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask,” Hunk says one afternoon when they’re all in the lounge, “what happened to fingerless-glove best buds?” He wiggles his fingers in the air, showing off his glove. “We were glove buddies! Did yours like, get ruined or something?”  
  
“No, they’re fine, I guess I—” Keith pauses, frowns, looks down at his bare hands. “I guess I took them off and didn’t even notice I hadn’t put them back on.”  
  
“What?” Hunk sounds taken aback. “You always wear them, man! Even I take them off sometimes but I’d literally never seen you without them until the past couple weeks. How did you not notice?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Keith says. He looks up, spots Lance sitting cross-legged beside Pidge and Allura and Coran on the other side of the lounge. He’s telling them a story from his middle school days, complete with wild gestures and exaggerated voices, and the girls and Coran are almost crying with laughter. “Or actually—I do know.”  
  
Hunk waits for a moment. Keith doesn’t say anything else.  
  
“So are you…” Hunk trails off, confused. “Are you gonna tell me?”  
  
Keith looks at him, looks back at Lance.  
  
“Yeah,” he says, and stands up. “Hey, guys?”  
  
Lance pauses his story. Everyone looks at Keith. A couple of them look too expectant for comfort—Coran, for example, who seems like he’s been waiting for this announcement, and Allura, who seems to be gearing up for a triumphant “ah- _ha_!”—and for a moment Keith falters, considers making up something else to say or just saying never mind and sitting back down.  
  
But then he meets Lance’s gaze, big and bright and brown, sees that he knows what Keith will say, sees how happy it makes him, so he takes a deep breath, resists the urge to cross his arms, and smiles.  
  
“Me and Lance have something we want to tell you.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! voltron tumblr is [laallomri](https://laallomri.tumblr.com/), feel free to come talk to me about the show, this, ask about other fics I'm working on, tell me how you day went, whatever you want


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